


A Giant's Shadow

by Kakarot_Son



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kakarot_Son/pseuds/Kakarot_Son
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke was a little more determined to follow in the footsteps of his estranged prodigy of a brother however what are the implications of this for others, especially when a certain bun-haired girl is placed on Team 7 instead? With a slightly different team, Naruto achieves his true potential. Possible NaruxHarem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Damn Uchiha," Lee muttered as he smashed a fist into a lone log. It hurt a little but that didn't stop him from punching it with his other one. Being on a team was really nothing like what he had expected it to be...

Neji was a Hyūga, a fairly talented one but easily one of the cockiest people that he had ever met. While he hadn't really expected Neji to do much other than say a couple of words to him, he still refused to shake Lee's hand. That alone was more than enough to explain the  _mutual_  relationship between the two of them. Lee had hoped that after about a year that Neji would've come around a bit, but he couldn't have been more wrong. Perhaps the older boy had a little more than the speck of the respect that he'd initially had, but they both still had ways to go.

Sasuke on the other hand… well Lee still couldn't understand the young prodigy's mindset yet either. He understood that the boy's scars ran deep, Gai-sensei had made sure that he understood that their familial situations were very different to each other, but even after so long the boy still stuck to himself. He was the textbook definition of what was called a loner; he rarely left his house for anything other than mandatory meetings.

It wasn't that Sasuke had no friends either. During their time at the academy, Sasuke was easily the most popular of all of had made Lee quite jealous for a while and if not for the intervention of their teacher, he wouldn't have been able to stand the guy at all.

Despite what Gai-sensei had taught him in the short time that he'd had the man as a teacher, Lee couldn't help but shake his head slightly. He had everything that Lee didn't have, except perhaps a family. Issues with his chakra aside, Lee was the guy in the back of the classroom that even the kindest teacher wouldn't recognise. As he recalled someone kindly putting it once, he brought a new meaning to the word dead last.

Sasuke on the other hand… was a damn prodigy. Even though they were far from opposites, the younger boy was the person that everyone paid attention to. Lee didn't mind that all that much, he never was one for attention but he also had all the marks, perfect  _Ninjutsu_  and almost impeccable Taijutsu form. The last of the Uchiha had lost out on Rookie of the Year by a few spots, but considering that amongst his competition were the son of an ANBU operative, a Hyūga and one of the best young prospects the Inuzuka clan had seen in years, it was understandable. The thing that was so damn special about Sasuke was that he was a year younger than  _all_ of them, Lee—who would've otherwise been the youngest in the class—included. That kind of talent was rare; anyone knew that, even an orphan who had never been able to access his chakra.

Sasuke had been nice to him once or twice, though those times had been far and in between. But that said, he definitely had his work cut out with his teammates. Lee was just glad that his teacher more than made up for it, he'd gotten really lucky on that aspect. On a couple of the off days that all the former academy students had they'd organised a few little meetups and he'd heard a few rumours flying around about all the other teachers… needless to say, all of them weren't as nice or rather as inspiring as Gai-sensei.

He couldn't help but frown at the young prodigy's actions though. While it was true that he hadn't had the greatest life, there was a fine line between turning down all offers of friendship and being a stick in the mud. Given the fact that he still called Lee a dead last in what Gai-sensei would consider an "unyouthful manner" after the green-clad genin bested him in a spar, something else was going on. He knew the younger boy had a lot of pressure on him to live up to the reputation of his family, apparently even more so than even Neji but the boy's mannerisms were odd... Lee was no psychiatrist but that couldn't be right.

However a lone thought suddenly struck Lee's mind. Perhaps it wasn't Sasuke that was the problem, but rather himself...

Although Lee knew it wasn't entirely fair on his part to think of himself, he was  _the_  dead last. Not just  _a_ dead last, the dead last of all dead lasts. He was the one dragging their team down, the last of the Uchiha, a skilled Hyūga and perhaps the best jonin-sensei in all of Konoha. He was an embarrassment to Gai's teachings, and the excuse that he was just a clueless orphan didn't cut it anymore.

Sasuke had lost both his parents too  _and_ a brother, people that he had grown up with and loved. He'd known them for the better part of a decade and Lee was sure that it would've hurt a lot to have them all suddenly ripped away.

Neji had lost his father and Lee hadn't yet mustered up the courage to ask about his mother, but he suspected that the news wouldn't be good. While Neji had other siblings and relatives, Lee had seen a few of the members of the Hyūga clan... to put it simply, he couldn't entire blame Neji's behaviour on the young boy himself.

Lee on the other hand had never even known his parents. Though he hoped that they'd be staring down upon him with pride one day, it occurred to him that he had never really lost anything. His last name was something that he'd come up with... Lee... he remembered having heard that it was a common name in a foreign land, far away from the village of Konoha. It was why he preferred going with it, it sounded much better than his first name—he didn't have the slightest clue as to how he had acquired that.

His... weakness wasn't something that he could pin down to not having anyone to guide him any longer. It was bad enough that most Ninja were orphans anyway, but the excuse wouldn't hold in a team of them. Well if he was the one dragging their team down, he'd make the change. He was going to make Gai-sensei proud! With that thought in mind, Lee brought the heel of his foot up to the log and firmly planted it in it.

...

"And that wraps up the teams. From now on, all of you are now Ninja of the Leaf! You now represent it as it represents you, and I have no doubt that each one of you will grow to be strong, independent warriors of this fine village. However know that the path will not be easy, you will each encounter your own problems and turmoils but I have confidence that you will be able to overcome them with the help of your friends. On a more personal note though, I feel truly honoured to have taught such a fine batch of students and I wish you luck with all your future endeavours!"

Naruto joined the other students of the class in letting out a little cheer, as they threw their hands up in joy. It was hard to imagine that not too long ago he had been sitting outside on one of the swings all by himself, yet he he was now, sitting in the graduating class for the first time with a forehead protector.

It felt... good he supposed. He'd been in the academy for almost as long as he could remember so it felt a little odd to know that portion of his life was over. For once, he found himself enraptured in Iruka-sensei's words as this was one of the last times he'd hear the man speak as his teacher. Surprisingly he couldn't help but find a degree of truthfulness to the scarred man's words.

Saying that he had encountered problems was something of an understatement. Had it not been for that little stroke of luck a couple of days prior, he'd be stuck repeating the fourth year of the academy once again. Three years had been more than enough for his tastes, and he was almost positive that if the old-man insisted that he took the same class again he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from storming into the Hokage's office and forcing him to change his mind.

He had no idea what to expect as far as his team went though. Sakura was on his team, so that was a massive score. Perhaps even given enough time, she'd finally go out with him. However he knew that it was best to not get his hopes up too high, most of the girls in the class strayed away from him. Or most of the boys for that matter, except for perhaps Kiba. Even though they were pretty good friends, the Inuzuka got all of the girls... well actually saying he got _them_  was a bit of a long shot, given that most of them actually wanted to get close to his brilliant older cousin brother.

Naruto had almost lost count of all the people that Kiba was related to... A pair of twin cousins that were about a year older than him, a chunin-level older sister and possibly a younger sister... or was that younger brother? Maybe he should've paid a little more attention when Kiba first told him about his family.

That said, his hopes of getting up and personal with Sakura were pretty low. There wasn't much that he could do to break the illusion that he was an utter idiot other than, well... not be an utter idiot. Maybe they'd never really go out, but she would most definitely be a better teammate than that creepy bug dude. Shino's reclusive personality and his bugs that... lived inside his body, just rubbed Naruto the wrong way.

That said, his other teammate didn't seem bad either. He'd never really gotten to know Tenten, but he figured that she was probably something special. If he had to take a stab in the dark, given that she came second overall in their graduating class, he'd say that she was one of those children from a smaller clan.

And she was probably one of the best Shinobi the clan had seen in generations and all that nonsense. Such things were overrated, Naruto had come to learn that everyone from a clan was the best from that clan in decades these days. However this... Tenten girl, he didn't recall her last name. Which meant that either she didn't have one or he'd never paid enough information the find out, the latter sounding most likely.

He had to admit... he'd taken a rather large blow to his ego when he found out that he was on a team with two other girls, even if one of those was Sakura, before figuring that it was better than being on no team at all. He just found himself hoping that their sensei was a boy though, he could envision the three of them ganging up on him to give him a makeover at some ridiculous slumber party. His  **Oiroke no Jutsu**  would probably do nothing to help the situation...

Kakashi Hatake... he shuddered slightly at how girly the name sounded. As much as he wanted their jonin-sensei to be a man, he realised that all he could do was wait for their teacher to show up. It wouldn't matter that much anyway, as long as they were strong.

"Now your jonin-sensei will all show up after an hour or two, so I suggest that you lot go and eat lunch. Or even better, use this opportunity to get acquainted with your new teammates!" Iruka offered his last words of wisdom as he walked out the door of their former class room.

Almost immediately after the academy teacher left, an awkward silence overcame the class as all the people who had been chattering under their breath paused.

A loud sigh echoed throughout the room as a pineapple-haired boy stood up from his chair and muttered something quietly. "What a drag..." The boy pushed his chair in and walked out of the room, two people that Naruto identified as Choji and Ino following in his wake.

"I believe it would be wise if the three of us followed in the path of Shikamaru and his teammates." Naruto's eyes twitched as Shino—the rookie of the year—led his teammates out of the room. His still hadn't said as much as a hello to them.

He was a little surprised to note that the two of them hadn't moved from their seats either. The three of them were rather far away from each other, their seats forming something similar to a large scalene triangle. He wasn't sure if it was because they were too shy to talk to each other or if they were waiting for the other members of the classroom to fade away. Shrugging it off, he decided the wait and find out as he lightly tapped a pencil on the desk.

Minutes later, he clearly found that it was the former as even though most of the class had left they were still facing away from each other. Knowing that he would likely have to take the initiative, he walked towards Sakura and greeted the girl. Grinning as she mumbled out a half-hearted response, he yelled at Tenten and ushered her to walk over to them.

"So do you guys want to go to lunch?" he asked the two girls enthusiastically as Tenten approached.

"Uhh I'm not really feeling that hungry, Naruto." said Sakura, a bittersweet tone to her voice. "You guys can go on without me if you'd like, but I reckon that I'll just stay over here."

"That's alright... I'm not feeling that hungry either," Naruto quickly lied as his stomach betrayed him, rumbling slightly on the inside. "I just thought that Tenten might want to get something to eat, and that we could use the opportunity to get to know each other."

"Since when did you start listening to Iruka-sensei?" Sakura quirked an eyebrow slightly as she let out a light laugh before looking out the window. "Well, I guess we could go to a Sushi stand or something if Tenten's up to it. I probably won't eat though."

"Nah, it's okay Sakura. I'm not that hungry either, I had a  _gigantic_ breakfast and besides, teammates are meant to stick together," laughed Tenten. "And hey, we can get to know each other here too.

"Sounds like a plan," Naruto grinned. At least he'd be able to talk with Sakura, surely that was worth more than a little food... even if that food was... delicious ramen.

"So uhh... I'm Naruto, Konoha's next Hokage!" he declared, raising his arms into the air for good measure. Old habits had a tendency of dying hard.

"Isn't that a little too big of a goal, considering that you're this year's dead last?" Sakura muttered lamely, surprised to note that the two of them heard her mumbling.

"Say, that's right. I thought you failed the graduation test, so what're you doing over here?" Tenten questioned curiously.

"Well... Uhh can you guys keep a secret?" Naruto grimaced, his mood instantly changing as he glanced at the door and gladly noticed that the last of their classmates had closed it on their way out. He hadn't exactly expected such a topic to come up and it wasn't going to be easy to explain by any means.

"Sure," Sakura said, probably just a curious about the whole ordeal as Tenten, as the bun-haired girl nodded her head.

"Well, you guys remember Mizuki-sensei... right? Well he approached me after the Genin Exams and told me about a secret test that would allow me to pass—to steal a forbidden scroll from the Hokage's tower and learn a technique from it." Ignoring Sakura's rather loud gasp, Naruto stared into Tenten's now-wide eyes. "So I managed to do that somehow, I guess you could call it a fluke. Looking back, it was probably pretty stupid of me to not realise that I was being tricked but at the time I was pretty desperate to finally graduate. And yeah, I learned a technique from it!"

"So that's how you graduated?" Tenten questioned, her eyes skeptical.

"Like I said, I was being tricked. Mizuki-sensei just wanted the scroll, so he had planned to kill me and pin the whole thing on me—probably leave everyone to think that I killed myself by accident with one of those techniques, but Iruka-sensei showed up right in time." Naruto recounted thoughtfully, surprised to note that they were both completely enraptured in his story.

"And they fought for a bit, till Iruka-sensei took a pretty strong blow to his back... He couldn't really move for a while, and then Mizuki-sensei said something that made me just want to run away from Konoha as a whole and not look back... until Iruka-sensei said something which made me change my mind and that was just in time too, because Mizuki-sensei had just said a couple of words that really pissed me off."

"Naruto, if someone told you that you couldn't have Ramen for the rest of the day you'd be really pissed off!" Sakura hushed Tenten quiet as the older girl stifled a giggle.

"So yeah, I was really angry so I used the technique that I learned from the forbidden scroll to defeat him... managed to knock him unconscious somehow, and the next thing I knew Iruka-sensei was handing me his headband as he made me a genin." Naruto's grin only widened as he saw the gaping holes that were the mouths of his two teenage teammates.

"You... beat... a... chunin?" Sakura said slowly in disbelief, clearly having trouble with registering the prospect in her head.

"Kinda, it was a bit of a fluke and I'm sure that Iruka-sensei wore him down a little before that. Plus, he was a little overconfident but I sure showed him."

"So you took him by surprise then, makes sense." Tenten nodded slightly in understanding, "so what was the technique that you learned from the scroll anyway? If an academy student managed to beat a chunin with it, it sounds like it could be pretty nasty."

"It was a clone technique—the  **Kage Bunshin Jutsu**. I'd never heard of it before, but now I can do it better than the regular  **Bunshin Jutsu**  and it kicks way more ass too!"

"You know that's not really too reassuring, Naruto, considering that you couldn't even do the normal Clone Jutsu." Sakura commented dryly, finally having gotten her head around the feat that Naruto had accomplished.

"I'll show you sometime Sakura-chan, it's really cool and powerful too," Naruto offered as he tried not to gloat too much.

"That's cute."

All three of the newly-graduated academy students span on their heels to face the voice which had spoken. It sounded confident and icy, yet warm at the same time... and it was the best description that he could give of the first impression he had of the woman standing in front of them.

Her lips were in a rather neutral position—they hadn't formed into a frown or a smile—but her body language was rather warm and welcoming. Despite the fact that she wasn't all that tall, quite a bit shorter than Iruka-sensei from his first glance, her charisma commanded a certain form of respect.

The mystery woman's right hand was poised against her cheekbone in what was probably meant to be an overly-exaggerated thinking position, once again looking rather friendly and welcoming. However, Naruto soon realised that her eyes were anything but. The red irises that made up the majority of both of her eyes were akin to that of what Naruto would've assumed a demon's would've looked like and the black pupil's in the centre of her eyes provided a deep contrast—she looked scary.

"U-uhh are you Kakashi...s-sensei?" Naruto stuttered nervously as both of his teammates gave him a questioning gaze. "What? It sounds like a girl name!"

"Far from it actually. Although you were right in assuming that I'm a jonin-sensei, my name's-"

"Yuhi Kurenai!" Tenten supplied in a squeal, "you're one of my biggest role models!"

"... Yeah," Kurenai offered the brown-haired girl a gentle smile. "As I was saying, I'm Team Eight's Sensei... I'm looking for a Hinata Hyuga, Kiba Inuzuka and a Shino Aburame although I doubt any of you fit the bill."

"No, we're Team Seven. The rest of the teams all went out into the village for lunch, but they'll be back in a little while," Sakura quickly supplied, drawing Kurenai's attention to her.

"I see... so why didn't you three join them then?" asked Kurenai inquisitively, "I remember back when I first became a genin our entire graduating class went out to celebrate."

"Well none of us were really that hungry..." Naruto said, speaking up for the first time since he'd noticed the jonin's presence. "And we figured it'd be better to get to know each other, I was just in the middle of telling a story."

"I heard most of that," the woman nodded at the teenager in approval. "The entire situation was a little sketchy from what I've heard in the jonin lounge, but not many would've managed to pull through the way you did."

"It really wasn't anything special," Naruto's face flushed red as he put both of his hands behind his head. "But then again, what did you expect from your future Hokage?"

"Not one for modesty, I take it?" She sighed, shaking her head slightly, "so you guys said that your sensei was Kakashi Hatake, right?"

"Yeah, I remember reading up a little on him... he's got one of the best mission completion records ever! 99.9%... only a few people have ever even come close to that." said Sakura, her voice lost in admiration for the man.

"So he is a boy," Naruto nodded at Sakura's words almost seriously. If not for the hand which covered Kurenai-sensei's face, he would've said that she had laughed a little.

"Look, I'm a pretty new jonin but from what I've heard you shouldn't be expecting Kakashi Hatake to show up anytime soon. I've also got to find my team, so how about I take you guys out for lunch—you're probably starving by now—my treat?"

…

"I knew we should've gone to Ichiraku's!" Naruto exclaimed, pulling at his hair in frustration.

"It's not really that much of a big deal if this place doesn't have Ramen... is it?" Tenten questioned as she resisted the urge to facepalm.

"Ramen is the most holy food to have ever graced the face of the Earth, of course it's a big deal."

"You know it's really not that healthy for you," Sakura lamented, eyeing Kurenai carefully as the woman gave a bemused look. "It's probably why you're shorter than both of us, y'know."

"Hey! That's not fair, Tenten's a year older than me and I bet you that I'll grow taller than both of you one day," Naruto argued as he grinned slightly.

"A year older?" Kurenai interrupted as she looked to the bun-haired girl with a questioning gaze. "Normally, people only start at the academy earlier than the rest."

"I hadn't really made up my mind at the time—I was just a little girl in an orphanage, and by the time I enrolled at the academy there wasn't any more room. That and the class had already advanced so far ahead that one of the chunin suggested that I just sign up for next year."

Kurenai nodded, accepting the girl's explanation. "So where exactly do you live then? I'd assume you still stay at an orphanage or something..."

"Well I'm still technically an orphan, but I don't live at the orphanage. Since I was an academy student, I was allowed to move out provided that I managed to get some caretakers to voluntarily check in on me from time to time-"

"And help with the financial aspect of things too, I take it." Kurenai nodded in understanding.

"No, actually, the village provides me with a constant income of cash which comes along every week. It's not all that much, but it's more than enough to get by... get all the necessities, some Ninja equipment and maybe a couple of casual clothes every month." Tenten corrected the kunoichi in a mature manner, until Naruto spoke up.

"That's weird... the money that I get's only enough for food, and maybe some Ninja stuff if I save up for a couple of months."

"You must be buying some pretty expensive food then, Naruto." Tenten flashed the younger boy a smile, surprised to see a rather sour face instead of the grin which she was already becoming accustomed to.

"I doubt that," Sakura said as she gave a small shake of her head. "Naruto doesn't eat anything other than Ramen... ever. Like you said, it's unhealthy, but it's dirt cheap."

Naruto gave a little nod upon hearing Sakura's words. "And the Ichiraku's often give me pretty good discounts, even a free bowl every so often."

Sakura was a little taken aback when she noticed the mature demeanour that had overcome Naruto, somewhat similar to that of the one he had adopted when he told them his little graduation story. "Well how much money do you get, Tenten?"

"Well it changes a lot, economy stuff and all that, but it's usually around the 3,000 ryo mark." The bun haired girl answered, also noticing the somewhat more serious tone that everyone had taken on.

"Yea... that sounds familiar, although I think I might get a little more. Couple hundred more ryo or something per week, but that's about right." Naruto grimaced, he had a feeling that the conversation was headed somewhere he didn't want it to go.

"That..." Sakura whispered, just loud enough for the other three to hear, "doesn't add up."

"Perhaps it's not the amount of money that he gets, or what he spends it on," Kurenai said monotonously, having given deep thought to the situation. Upon getting questioning looks from all members of the team, she reiterated. "Thinks about where he's going for his other items, food aside. It's entirely possible that he's been going to one of the high-end stores—it's likely that an orphan wouldn't know much better."

"Well, normally I go to that Yakuzai-store thing. Their Kunai and stuff are pretty expensive, but they're fairly durable."

"What?" Tenten's head snapped up in surprise. "Yakuza's Ninja Store has some of the worst Kunai I've ever seen. In fact, I bet that I could hand-make better ones! That aside, what do you mean by pretty expensive, they're barely-"

"Three hundred ryo a piece, I know it's pretty expensive stuff. And I don't know about them being bad, they last for a while..." Naruto shrugged slightly as he met Tenten's eye.

"That's bullcrap, the last I saw three hundred ryo could buy you at least a twenty-five pack... you've got to be kidding, Naruto, why would anyone overcharge someone by that much? Plus they're more like the first sharp Kunai that you'd get a six year old, they can barely dent a practice target let alone draw blood." Almost infuriated, Tenten responded.

"I'm afraid to say that it doesn't sound like that. There are a few... less than friendly people, who discriminate against orphans—probably don't like the fact that they've got to pay tax for them. But it's likely that something else is at stake here," Kurenai stated, her curiosity tickled.

"Well, many Ninja are orphans," Sakura said growing off what Kurenai had said. "So it's probably something with Naruto specifically, maybe he pulled a prank on them or something?"

Naruto was now sweating, he knew what it was. Having just found out that he was the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki a few days ago, it was rather hard to forget, however he was willing to bet that Kurenai-sensei knew why too. His team-mates however were another story and it would just take one tiny slip of tongue from the jonin in front of him to set things completely off for him, so he needed to tread extra carefully.

"Yeah, it's probably that. Defacing the Hokage's monument the other day's hardly the worst of the stuff he's done." Naruto relaxed slightly as Tenten sighed, shaking her head a little.

"Y-yeah... I won't be doing that anymore though, I promised Iruka-sensei the other day." Naruto stuttered nervousy.

"While that's mature of you, Naruto, I don't think stopping  _now_  will do anything to fix the vendetta they have against you," said Kurenai as she picked at her now-cold bowl of rice. Evidently, she wasn't the only one who had forgotten about her food as she noticed Tenten follow soon after.

"Damn..." Naruto said, looking down towards the cheap restaurant's floor.

"Well that's just one of the stores, have you checked out any of the other ones?" Sakura asked, suddenly determined to get to the bottom of the mystery she had just discovered.

"Yeah, almost all of the ones that I've ever gone to are pretty expensive... Yakuza's is probably the cheapest I've ever gotten any Ninja equipment, I think."

"Well what about normal clothes? Surely those aren't too... overpriced?"

"Nah those are pretty expensive too. I got my jumpsuits for a massive bargain though—only about 1200 ryo for five of them!"

"That sounds believable," Tenten stated. "Probably a little on the overpriced side, but it's not half bad."

"No kidding, you couldn't believe how happy I was when the guy at the store offered me a bargain. But yeah, clothes are pretty expensive as well."

"It seems as though a lot of people hold a little bit of a grudge against you for your pranks, that's too bad though. From what I heard a couple of them sounded pretty funny, but I think it's best that the three of you sort this out another time as we've got to get back to the academy." Kurenai smiled at them, standing up from her chair as she placed a generous sum of money on the table. "While we didn't manage to find my team, it's nice to know that the future of Konoha is in good hands."

All three of them turned as red as tomatoes as soon as the complement left the jonin's mouth. Sakura stood up along with them, stuttering as she thanked the soon-to-be sensei of Team Eight.

"U-uh thank you, Kurenai-sensei. It's been nice to get to know you too," she beamed as she looked into Kurenai's eyes.

"C'mon, I'll walk you guys back and maybe I can tell you guys a bit more about me and what you can expect now that you have graduated from the academy."

…

"So as you probably know by now, my name's Yuhi Kurenai. I'm one of Konoha's newest jonin and one of the most adept Genjutsu users inside the entire village, ANBU included." Naruto made a funny face as the small group continued on ahead. Realising that the blond haired boy had stopped, the three of them did too, looking back towards him.

"Genjutsu? Blah, I suck at it and besides there's no honour in deceiving your opponent. You should fight them head on!"

Kurenai beat the other two girls to the punch. "While that sounds like a noble attitude, Naruto, you'll soon learn that being honourable on the battlefield will result in nothing more than your head. As much as we hate to say it, we are Ninja, the dirtiest of the dirty. Deception is merely one of the simpler things that comes with the job; keep on the lookout for assassination missions. Being a rather new jonin, I've only been on a few of those but you'll discover they're less than honourable."

"Meh, maybe. But Ninjutsu's still definitely more useful... like if you blow a hole through someone versus making someone think you blew a hole through them with Genjutsu. No-one can snap out of having a big chunk of flesh missing, right?"

"You do have a point, I'll grant you that much. But if you can get someone to die with no visible external marks, it can really work to your advantage. Genjutsu—as I'm sure you found during your study of it in the academy—is incredibly useful for both torturing people and infiltrating organisations. If you're good enough with Genjutsu, you can get people to think you're a member of a uniformed organisation while in reality you're still wearing your normal clothes; it's much more effective than a  **Henge** , which you'll find rather easy to detect."

"That does sound pretty cool," Naruto ran a hand through his hair as he gave it some thought. It sounded like it really had unlimited potential as opposed to Ninjutsu where you mainly had set techniques. "But the thing is that I still kind of suck at it, I could barely even do a low E-ranked one in the academy."

Kurenai began to walk forward again, the three teenagers following her. "Well practice does make perfect, but sometimes there's nothing wrong with seeking out a little extra help. Take a look at the simplest technique that you can find in the library and work your way up from there, and if you're really having trouble I'm sure that I could set you on the right path. That goes for the two of you as well, somehow I doubt anyone on my team will pick up Genjutsu," she said glancing towards Sakura and Tenten.

"Me? Genjutsu?" Sakura questioned as she weighed out the idea. "It sounds like a good idea, but I reckon Naruto could use it a lot more than me. He's loud enough as it is, so it'll probably be helpful if he could properly disguise himself or at least alter how enemies perceive things on missions."

"Nah," Tenten offered a smile in consolation. "I thought about it a while ago, first I wanted to become a Genjutsu master, then a better Medic-nin than Tsunade of the Sannin, then more successful in the field of Space-Time Ninjutsu than the Fourth Hokage but I finally ended up finding my weapons somewhere in there. I reckon I'll stick to them, no offence."

"I'm still not too sure about it though," said Naruto skeptically. "I've always been way better at Ninjutsu and Taijutsu, but it might not be a bad idea to take a look into it."

Kurenai nodded upon hearing Naruto's words. "It's not for everyone but many people forget how truly useful it is and since it sounds like the girls have a rough idea of what role they'll play in your team, you may want to start thinking about yours pretty soon."

"Heh, it's kind of funny, you know." Naruto grinned slightly, "I spent so much time wanting to become a genin but I never gave much thought to what would happen when I finally became one... now I kind of regret that.

"I wouldn't say you're a genin just yet."

"What?" Naruto swore that Kurenai stifled a small giggle at their collective yell.

"It's not exactly my position to explain but don't assume you're on the home stretch yet. Your sensei will likely explain further, but aside from that do any of you have any more questions?" The woman smiled gracefully at the three of them, clearly doing their best to be as helpful as possible to them.

"Yeah... Iruka-sensei didn't exactly cover it too much at the academy, but could you tell us a bit about the ANBU?" Sakura asked, seeing a clear opportunity to learn more.

"Well I probably know a little more than your average Ninja—don't tell anyone—but I spent a year and a half within ANBU forces when I was a chunin. Basically, the ANBU are a collection of elite Ninja within Konoha who serve the Hokage. Generally their identities are kept heavily secret, and they were masks to conceal it. As far as signing up for the ANBU goes, you can't officially do that; they'll find you by reputation or recommendation. They generally like to pick out talented chunin or jonin because general field missions are often a waste of their talent, since they deal with top-secret missions which generally tend to be a little darker than you'd expect. Aside from the regular ANBU, there's a more serious group called the ANBU: Black Ops or just Black Ops for short who report directly to the Hokage. I don't know much about them other than that they're the elite of the most elite and I haven't the slightest clue about what kind of things their missions entail."

"Did the Hokages have to go through the Black Ops?" Naruto asked, curious if his life-long goal would eventually lead him to the group.

"Potentially, but that's beyond me," Kurenai said shaking her head slightly. "However I'd say it's probably a bit of a long shot to say that all of them have been in, particularly the First."

"So it's not a job requirement, then..." Naruto said absent-mindedly, "I bet the Fourth was a part of it!"

"I doubt that," interjected Sakura. "The Yondaime was  _world_  famous when he was just a jonin, and was a pretty well-known chunin as well. Plus to with his spiky blonde hair, he'd a have a bit of trouble hiding his identity with just a mask."

"I guess that's just a trait we share then," Naruto grinned. "Y'know I'm pretty similar to him, coolest guy in the class and everything."

Tenten punched him lightly in the arm. "Well... he did dress a lot better than you."

Picking up on what the bun-haired girl was attempting to do, Sakura quickly added her own two cents in. "Yeah, I mean how could you ever even  _look_  like a Hokage with the clothes you wear?"

"... What's wrong with my clothes? Orange is like the best colour ever, and it has tonnes of hidden pockets! And besides when I'm Hokage I'll probably have to wear those robes that the Old Man wears... I'll see if I can't change them to orange though." Naruto smiled playfully when he saw all three of them cringe at the idea.

"Naruto, I'll point this out to you because I don't want to see you dead after your first big mission. As I said earlier, Ninja are stealthy... they blend in with the background. The things that orange blends with are very limited and rather than being a somewhat dull colour, it stands out and will most likely mean that you'll be the first one to be noticed in a crowd. When you're on a mission, that can often mean you'll be the first one killed."

"Isn't that a good thing though?" Naruto asked, as his two team-mates gave him confused looks. "I'd rather have them attack me than Sakura or Tenten."

Kurenai rolled her eyes slightly at the naivety of the young boy. "While that's very sweet of you Naruto, you won't always be on a team with them. Sooner or later, you'll find yourself on a team with people you've never met before—while it's best that no-one is seen at all, you certainly don't want to be the first one to be picked off."

"It makes a little sense, but orange still looks way cooler than grey or whatever. So I guess that I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come up to it." Naruto shrugged off the words of the three kunoichi.

"You can't be seriou-" Sakura started, however after a look from Tenten her voice faded of.

"It looks like we're here, anyway." said Tenten as she eyed the academy building that they were approaching.

…

"There you guys are!" Kiba roared as he saw them. "We were looking for you all over the place—we thought you'd been kidnapped or something."

"Kidnapped? C'mon Kiba, have a little faith in your future Hokage." Naruto said, patting the dog-like boy over the back.

"You've been missing for two hours, and no-one saw your sensei either. According to Iruka-sensei, he hadn't shown up either... what else were we meant to think?"

"Two hours? I guess we got a little carried away at lunch, sorry for the fright there. Anyway, where's everyone else?" Naruto said, glancing at the classroom which was void of people other than Hinata and Shino.

"The rest of them already left with their sensei... you guys are pretty damn late, y'know? And speaking of which, I thought your sensei was a guy?" Kiba made sure to take his time as he took a careful look at the rather good-looking jonin.

"He is," Kurenai said, stepping forward. "My name is Kurenai Yuhi, and I'm the jonin-sensei of Team Eight."

Naruto couldn't help but let out a full-fledged grin as he watched Kiba's eyes almost buldge out of his head. "T-team... Eight?"

"I take it that you're Kiba Inuzuka then, and that the two behind you are your squad mates?" asked Kurenai, glancing towards Hinata and Shino.

"Y-yeah..." he said in a dazed voice, as the other two members of his team finally approached their little group.

Kurenai looked them both in the eye as she spoke. "The name's Kurenai Yuhi and as I was just telling Kiba over here, I'm to be your sensei."

"I see... in that case, I look forward to studying under your watchful eye Yuhi-sensei and as you no doubt know, I am Shino Aburame," Shino spoke in a calculated manner, his glasses hiding his eyes as always.

"Kurenai-sensei will be just fine," she said nodding towards the young Aburame before looking towards Hinata who let out a small squeak.

"M-my name's..." Naruto couldn't help but feel that Hinata was staring at him as she spoke. Was there something on his face? "... Hinata. It's n-nice to meet you sensei."

The pale girl finally took her eyes off him as she looked towards her sensei, and if he didn't know any better he would've said she was cowering ever so slightly. Shaking it off as perhaps nerves, Naruto glanced up to the oldest of the group.

"Well Naruto, Sakura, Tenten, it was good to have a chat to you. Remember what I told you—it may come in handy one day, but I think it's time that I get introduced to my team. Hatake should show up... in about an hour, if I'm not mistaken, so I bid you farewell." After they all muttered their own goodbyes, the jonin promptly walked out the classroom door; her soon-to-be students in toe.

"So what do we do now?" Sakura asked in a bored manner. "I think we've already gotten to know each other enough, and there's not much else that we can do."

"Well I could tell you about that one time that I put itching powd-"

"Heard it, Naruto." Tenten said in an equally bored manner. "You told it to the whole class while we were revising for one of the mid-year exams, remember?"

"... Dammit," he swore. That was his favourite story to tell and no doubt the most interesting... unless he counted his own little graduation story. "So what do you think our sensei's going to be like?"

"I'm not too sure," Tenten said, twiddling her thumbs. "I've heard his name around a couple of times, so I guess he's either pretty famous or strong... maybe both."

"I thought he was a girl at first," Naruto admitted. "Never even heard his name around before, so I'm not sure what to expect?"

"What's wrong with girls?" Tenten asked playfully, "we don't bite y'know."

"I know! I know! But it would've just been my luck to be placed on an all girl's squad..."

"What difference would that have made? Girls can be just as strong as boy! Just look at Tsunade for example."

"Tsuande?" Naruto asked perplexed, it was probably another name that he should know.

"Tsunade... please at least tell me you've heard of Tsunade of the Sannin?" Tenten asked holding a palm to her forehead.

"Now that I think of it... it does ring a bell. She was the second Hokage's mum, wasn't she?"

"Ugh... you can't be serious."

"Stop it, both of you. You both sound like a bunch of toddlers," Sakura commented as she blew gently on a nail. "For Naruto's benefit, Tsunade is one of the strongest Ninja in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Her former teammates include the Toad Sage Jiraiya and the infamous traitor, Orochimaru; her sensei was the Third Hokage."

"Wow... it sounds like you managed to memorise an entire textbook," Naruto cringed slightly as the pink-haired girl gave him a venomous glare. "So do you have any info on our sensei then?"

Persisting with the look she had given Naruto, Sakura sighed slightly before talking. "Kakashi Hatake is one of—if not—the finest active Shinobi within Konoha. Graduating at age 5 from the academy, the son of Konoha's White Fang gained chunin promotion by the time he was six. He was also an ANBU captain and is currently a jon-"

"Wait does that mean he was a part of the Black Ops thing?" Naruto interrupted, eager to find more about what Kurenai had been speaking about.

"I don't know Naruto, if he was they certainly wouldn't put that in a text book. As I was saying he's also a master at all kinds of Ninjutsu having mastered over 1000 of them—some even believe that his Ninjutsu count equals or exceeds that of the Third's. Apparently he's also got one Sharingan eye which must have helped him do so."

"So he's kinda like that Sasuke guy?" Naruto asked, twitching slightly. Everyone had heard of the infamous Uchiha massacre and all that but he'd been unfortunate enough to meet the asshole in person. If their sensei was like him... Naruto would literally tear his hair out.

"I doubt he's as cool as Sasuke-kun but in terms of abilities, yes," Sakura nodded.

"I don't get why anyone even likes that jerk..." Naruto said, sighing slightly as he turned away from Sakura.

"He's an incredibly strong—and now also, incredibly rare—Ninja! Not to mention how strong he is, I'm not sure if many would have the will to live had their entire family been taken from them by their own brother, no less. And that's not even starting on his looks..."

"I get that he doesn't have a big family, but what's the big deal? I never even knew mine... least he had someone who loved him for a while." Naruto said solemnly, continuing to look away from Sakura.

"I'm sorry Naruto, it may sound harsh... but you and me, we're just two orphans out of the tens of thousands in Konoha. There's nothing really that special about us, yet anyway," Naruto turned around just in time to see Tenten give him an encouraging grin.

"Yeah! A Hokage has to be special, doesn't he?" Naruto said smiling back at her. "We're going to be the best team ever... even better than that jerk."

"Let's hope so," Tenten nodded encouragingly as Sakura joined in with a smile of her own. "I don't see how we'll ever be able to best the Sannin though..."

"If we give it our all, I don't reckon it's that hard." Sakura added, "They had a great sensei—the Third Hokage. We've got a great sensei too, the Fourth Hokage's only surviving student."

Naruto could've sworn that his jaw dropped to the floor as it slacked, his mind running around in circles asking questions. Perhaps he knew why... the Fourth had chosen him? It was the only question he had from the mess on graduation day, one which he knew wasn't appropriate to ask the Sandaime.  
He wasn't sure why, but his gut told him that it was best to not ask the old man. It wasn't that he did trust him anymore—he trusted him just as much as he did Iruka-sensei, just that he didn't expect to get the answer he wanted from the aged man.

"Hey Naruto?" Tenten asked, seeing the question on Naruto's face. "Do you want to know something even more interesting?"

His curiosity somewhat tickled, he gave a slight nod. "The Third Hokage trained the Sannin, one of their members being the toad sage, Jiraiya who in turn trained Minato Namikaze... the Fourth Hokage."

If it was possible, Naruto was sure that his jaw fell even further to the floor as he connected the dots. That meant that the teachings of both the Old Man and his idol... the Fourth Hokage were being passed down almost directly to him.

He couldn't help but smile slightly as he realised just how lucky he'd been the past few days. Passing the genin exam after failing it, getting put on a team with Sakura and now—being taught by the Fourth Hokage's pupil. Everything was just falling in place for him, going right how he wanted it to.. it was amazing.

"So that means that we have to become the best team ever! We don't even have a choice, we've probably got the best teacher in all of Konoha so we need to become great." Naruto threw both of his arms up in the air, just as he heard the door turn ever so slightly.

"My, my... what cute little genin I have this year."

...


	2. Chapter 2

All three of them span towards the source of the voice, somewhat surprised to see the man in person. He didn't exactly look like any of the Ninja they'd come across before, with spiky grey—or was that silver?—hair, and almost all of his face concealed with the exception of a lone eye.

While his attire wasn't anything similar to what Kurenai had been wearing, Naruto was relieved to note that it was a very common Ninja uniform that he'd seen across Konoha. The jacket was weird but he'd seen many people, even Iruka-sensei, wear it before. It was an ugly little thing, a bland dark green with nothing even close to resembling orange on it, but he supposed it made sense for him to wear darker clothes given Kurenai's little lecture on what Ninja should wear.

"Meet me up on the roof as soon as you can, we'll continue over there. It's too stuffy in here," the man muttered slightly. And he was gone in a blur, just as fast as he had come, leaving his three students stricken with confusion.

"... What?" Tenten muttered slightly baffled.

"I think he said that we've got to head up to the roof, probably to introduce ourselves and everything." Sakura said knowledgeably.

"But we already know each other," argued Naruto. "I mean how could we not? We were classmates and besides we were waiting for him to rock up for ages!"

"It wasn't that long, Naruto and it's not as though we've introduced ourselves to him yet." Sakura shot back, silencing him almost immediately. "So let's go."

Naruto stared blankly at the girl's back as she marched out, before looking towards Tenten. "I reckon we should follow her."

"Yeah, we might as well introduce ourselves together. Don't want to seem too unprofessional to our teacher or whatever," nodded Tenten, following in Sakura's wake, leaving Naruto to grumble a little before following as well.

Even though he knew the quickest way up to the roof was to go from out the window, Naruto slowly walked behind the two girls as they slowly walked up on the stairs towards the roof. Lagging behind as they walked on ahead, Naruto sighed slightly... it wasn't that anything was wrong, more that he was simply wondering where things were going to go.

His sensei was apparently a very strong man and a student of the man that Naruto had idolised the most—the best thing Naruto could get short of having the Yondaime resurrect himself to teach him. That was all there, but the man certainly didn't appear to be strong... if anything he looked like a skinny grandfather covered in Ninja gear to protect his identity or something.

Having seen numerous photos of the Yondaime, the difference between student and teacher was more than visible. The charisma which the Fourth Hokage gave off, even in a photo, was unparalleled by their sensei.

That said, Naruto was aware that looks weren't everything. There was a fair chance that Kakashi could be a better sensei than the Fourth, it was common for a student to surpass the master in the Ninja world. However, Naruto suspected there was a reason why the old man hadn't given up his job again—there wasn't anyone ready to fill the Hokage's shoes, or at least in a way that the Fourth had done.

Having reached the top of the stairs, Naruto nodded appreciatively to Tenten as she held open the little door leading to the roof for. Noticing that Kakashi was already on the far side of the roof, Naruto followed Sakura there as he cracked his knuckles slightly.

Composing himself slightly, he eyed the masked man's odd attire. A mask and a forehead protector that joined forces to conceal the majority of his face and weird grey hair. It wasn't exactly ninja-esque... or what he'd really been expecting, but thinking back on the words that Kurenai had advised him with it made a bit of sense.

"Ninja are stealthy... they blend in with the background. The things that orange blends with are very limited and rather than being a somewhat dull colour, it stands out and will most likely mean that you'll be the first one to be noticed in a crowd. When you're on a mission, that can often mean you'll be the first one killed."

It made sense, the mask concealed his face and probably muffled his voice somewhat, which likely made it harder to understand or even hear. The forehead protector, Naruto could imagine, was something to help conceal the rest of his face. The mask did a pretty good job of the bottom half and the forehead protector, the top with the exception of a lone eye and his flamboyant hair.

On a mission if he wore them like he was at the moment, it was likely that no-one would be able to recognise him if he took them off. Being able to get away from the crowd while it's looking for someone else was probably pretty useful when it came to assassination missions like the one Kurenai had told him about.

The hair still set Naruto off though; anyone with a decent pair of eyes would be able to pick out someone with his hairstyle in a stampede of people. Aside from the fact that it stood up in an awkward manner, after looking closer he found that it wasn't just grey—it was a lighter grey, silver if anything. That was something that you'd remember, had it been brown or black it was unlikely that anyone would ever look twice at it but silver was a memorable colour.

How did he do the kinds of missions that Kurenai talked about? He briefly recollected Sakura—or was it Tenten?—talking about how high the man's mission completion record was, it was highly unlikely that he got that by doing easy missions.

Assassinating someone wasn't always the easiest thing, the academy had taught him that much. Ideally you wanted to slip in and out undetected, but his hair would set anyone off... especially if he was as good as the others had made him out to be, it was probably something akin to a trademark of his. The answer hit Naruto like a hammer hit a nail, as he thought further back to Kurenai's words.

"... You can get people to think you're a member of a uniformed organisation while in reality you're still wearing your normal clothes..."

' _Genjutsu,'_  Naruto thought, nodding slightly in understanding. It was either that or the man simply didn't care if enemies spotted him—that wasn't out of the realm of possibilities either, given that the Yondaime had apparently trained him.

"And that makes three," Naruto's head snapped up as he noticed the man speak. Tenten was beside Naruto, and Sakura behind him, leaving their sensei in the middle of the trio of graduates.

"So I guess we'll start with introductions." His tone was bland, uninterested—uncaring, "I'll go first... well my name is Kakashi Hatake and I have no desire to tell you my likes and dislikes. My dreams for the future... hmmm and I have a lot of hobbies. Anyway it's your turn now, let's start with you pinky."

"All you told us was your name!" An irate Sakura exclaimed, before growling slightly. "I'm Sakura Haruno and I like gardening, I guess. I dislike annoying idiots who don't take their studies seriously, I hope to become a great Kunoichi and get married to a really strong man, and my biggest hobby is reading."

The silver-haired jonin nodded slightly, before looking towards Naruto. "Alright then, why don't you go next blondie?"

"Right," Naruto nodded un-phased by the name. "The name's Uzumaki Naruto and I like ramen and I love playing pranks. I don't really like getting in trouble though and my dream for the future is to become the greatest Hokage ever!"

"Hokage, huh?" The grey haired man raised a single eyebrow, "that's pretty interesting although I'd imagine you know that you'll have to work hard to become one."

"Yep," Naruto nodded. "I want to become even better than the Fourth, he's my idol."

"Hmm... I guess your next," Kakashi appeared to think for a second before pointing his thumb towards Tenten.

"Well, I'm Tenten. I like practicing with weapons and having a good time but I'm not all that fond of ninjutsu... and I dream to become a greater Kunoichi than Tsunade of the Sannin." She looked at Kakashi with a determined look on her face.

"So you all have big aspirations then," Kakashi sighed. "I was hoping for a decent team this year."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked, slightly offended.

"Exactly that. You guys don't look like Ninja at all, especially you... you're the biggest idiot out of the entire team." Kakashi said bluntly, shrugging for good measure.

"No way! I'm easily the strongest out of all of us," Naruto bragged as he stuck his tongue out at Kakashi.

"Sure you are," Kakashi said in an unbelieving manner before looking at his teammates. "Now are any of you little girlies serious about becoming Ninja?"

"O-of course we are," Sakura stuttered, nodding as she looked to Tenten for reassurance.

"Well, we wouldn't be here if we weren't," Tenten said confidently as she stared into Kakashi's eye with determination.

"I guess we'll have to see tomorrow then," Kakashi sighed slightly, why was it that he was always stuck with the most useless teams?

"W-what do you mean?" Tenten asked, unsure of what his words could possibly mean. "What are we doing tomorrow?"

"I bet it's our first mission!" Naruto said excitedly, "We're going to have to kick some bad guy's butt or something."

Kakashi merely laughed at them before explaining. "None of you can do missions yet, in fact, none of you are actual genin yet. Tomorrow's when you'll have the real genin test, and it's only if you do pass that—which you probably won't—will you become official genin of Konoha."

Naruto frowned slightly, hadn't they already had a genin exam? The idea of another one didn't sound all too appealing to him and he would've opened his mouth in protest if he didn't manage to remember some of the words Kurenai had said to him.

"It's not exactly my position to explain but don't assume you're on the home stretch yet. Your sensei will likely explain further..." Was that test what she had been talking about? It had to be. It wasn't all that hard to put two and two together, but Naruto couldn't help what would entail in this 'test'.

"What's this test going to be about?" Naruto asked, not quite expecting Kakashi to respond.

"Well I can't quite tell you, I want it to be a surprise and all, but I can tell you that everything else you've done prior to this test will be a walk in the park," the corners of Kakashi's mask lifted up into a slightly smile.

"... Including defeating a chunin-level ninja hell-bent on killing you?" Naruto asked suddenly calling Kakashi to flinch before the masked man regained his cool composure.

' _I forgot about that,_ ' Kakashi thought. 'I might have to keep an eye on this one.'

"Well that was a chunin, I'm a jonin," Kakashi said darkly. "I'd hate to break it to you but there's a pretty big difference."

"Does that mean we'll be fighting you or something Kakashi-sensei?" asked Sakura, intelligently realising that he was likely referring to the strength.

"Well you'll find out soon enough," he chuckled as he sent an uneasy feeling down their backs. "Now, I want the three of you to meet me by Training Ground Three tomorrow at seven a.m. Bring all the ninja tools you'll have, you're going to need them... oh and don't have any breakfast because you might throw up."

"T-throw up?" Sakura stuttered slightly, "so we are going to be fighting you then?"

"I wouldn't quite say fighting—more survival training, but yes your opponent will be me." Kakashi chuckled a little, an eerie tone to his voice.

"What's so funny?" Naruto exclaimed, not liking the feeling of his new sensei laughing like that one bit.

"Oh nothing... it's just that when I tell you guys this, you're going to freak out." he said in a tone that made it clear that he wasn't joking.

"Try us!" Naruto said confidently, "We won't freak out that easily y'know."

"Okay then," Kakashi said, eagerly drawing the eyes of his three new provisional students. "This test has a failure rate of over 66%!"

Sakura winced slightly, "So what happens if we fail the test? I mean we passed the genin exam after all."

"That was only to weed out the truly hopeless from the pack, do you really think that anyone who can muster up a simple jutsu is cut out to be a ninja?" Kakashi asked, "Being a ninja means a lot more than that. We do witness and perform things that aren't for everyone."

"I know that ninja kill... a lot... so there can't really be anything worse than death, right?" Naruto asked curiously.

"There are many worse fates than death and torture is only one of them," Kakashi sighed. "So anyway to answer pinky's question, if you fail this test you'll be sent back to the academy."

Tenten gasped, breaking the silence that she had fallen into. "You can't be serious! We spent four years trying to get out of that place, you can't send us back there!"

"Well then, don't fail."

…

Naruto attempted to catch his breath as he ducked. This test... was far harder than he could have ever anticipated it to be. They needed to get two bells from Kakashi-sensei and despite the best efforts of the three, it turned out to be much easier said than done.

He had tried everything from his Sexy Jutsu to spamming his Shadow Clones everywhere but nothing had done the trick, although there had been a few moments where Kakashi-sensei had been surprised. The only good thing about the entire predicament was that his teammates were just as bad off, or even worse off, as him.

Naruto had come to learn that being in a bad situation with others always beat being in a bad situation by himself back when he had started bunking academy classes with a couple of the other guys in his year-level. Having someone to share the punishment that Iruka-sensei usually handed out was always better than having to do it himself, hell it was more reassuring to just have a couple of people standing beside him as they were all yelled at for whatever reason.

Sakura had literally not gotten anywhere, for all the practical knowledge he thought the girl had she was clearly proving to be rather lacking when it came to applying it on the field—even in this mini survival exercise. Tenten, a little better off than the pink-haired girl, had had minimal luck with her long-ranged weapons and Naruto was almost positive that she was scared to approach him in close range combat... especially after what Kakashi-sensei had done to him.

Having someone's fingers shoved up your butt was hardly an eye-opening experience. It was just... embarrassing. Naruto had suffered all kinds of humiliation before, he was almost always the worst in every class back at the academy, but this was a easily one of the worst. Plus he was in front of two girls. That wasn't very cool at all.

He supposed it was a somewhat fair trade off that he had easily been the closest to getting one of the bells; Kakashi didn't have eyes at the back of his head and given that he had one eye covered up for some reason, his peripheral vision was almost nil. Something that Naruto was definitely able to take advantage of when he had the ability to almost infinitely duplicate himself. At one point he had almost touched one of Kakashi bells, the only problem was that his clone was nowhere near durable enough to take the punch that his sensei had sent its way.

After having attempted to rush Kakashi for the umpteenth time and failing, he had taken to hiding in the bushes like his teammates. It was easily the best way to compose himself and he had reasoned that if both Tenten and Sakura were doing it, it probably wasn't a bad idea.

In fact it was probably an even better way to exploit the 'vision problems' of their Cyclops of a sensei. Naruto doubted that anyone would be able to see very far with all the branches and leaves in between him and Kakashi-sensei, never mind someone with a single eye. Especially when he was on the lookout for two other people.

Another advantage of being in the bushes was that it lured both Tenten and Sakura out, since he wasn't attempting to attack Kakashi, they had an almost free, un-alert target... almost. It was almost selfish but the more time they spent out there getting beaten by Kakashi-sensei the more time he had to recuperate and plot out new attacks.

The pranks that he liked to play in his downtime came in handy there, while it was a long shot to say that there was intense planning put into each one of them, he did spend a little time organising them. It was more along the lines of attempting to force Kakashi into a spot where a bunch of clones would ambush him who would force him into another spot so another group of clones would ambush him, than anything... but it seemed to be working.

Or at least it had until Kakashi had caught on and stopped attempting to humour him. Now almost each one of his damn clones were popped the second Kakashi laid eyes on them, and in humiliating manners too... he recalled one time where Kakashi had sneezed on his clones to dispel them. That had been ridiculous... his clones were way stronger than that.

Naruto's eyes snapped up towards the clearing that they had started in, Kakashi had barely moved an inch the entire time, as he heard noise. It was Sakura attempting to attack him, but she wasn't having much success.

She managed to string together a replacement or two whenever he lazily countered one of her attacks, but it was apparent that he wasn't very tensed or focused on the girl. Kakashi was taking her for a joke just as he had initially taken him... it almost made Naruto regret having blown the man's first impression of him.

Even though it had only really been a few hours, this was easily some of the most fighting that Naruto had ever done—spars at the academy were usually pretty lacklustre and not taken all that seriously—and he was suddenly taking it a lot more seriously. He wasn't sure quite where all the motivation had suddenly come from but it felt almost natural to try and scrape together something to attack Kakashi with. Hell, he hadn't talked to Tenten or Sakura for almost two hours!

Glancing back to the battle and continuing along his previous train of thought he realised that he wasn't taking Sakura seriously at all... not that he looked particularly focussed when either he or Tenten attacked... but there was a certain droopiness in his body language that Naruto could see.

He really wasn't even trying... Naruto would've killed to be in her shoes at the moment, she was in the perfect position to lunge for the bells. Kakashi's guard was down and Naruto was sure he'd be able to do something, maybe keep his arms apart so the man couldn't try another replacement, just looking at the scene unfolding made Naruto's insides ache with eagerness.

Getting into her shoes probably wouldn't be all that easy. The replacement technique didn't work with humans as far as he knew, and now wasn't the time to try out something that could end disastrously. Some odd apparition between him and Sakura wasn't what was needed right now... although it wasn't a bad back-up option.

He supposed that all he wanted to do was somehow sneak under Kakashi's guard and Sakura was the one who was able to do that best, regardless of the reasons-

Naruto's eyes were drawn to the clearing again as he heard a multitude of loud clangs reverberate around the place. Sakura was slightly airborne and Kakashi was deflecting a barrage of weapons that Tenten was throwing with a kunai. With wide eyes Naruto watched as Sakura was sent flying into the bushes, the gears in his head spinning wildly out of control.

Kakashi probably couldn't see her and Tenten was distracting him... with Sakura out of the picture for now, a simple henge would have him in her shoes in Kakashi's eyes. All he had to do before that was make sure he kept Sakura out of the picture somehow and also not let Kakashi realise he was up to anything.

The first bit was simple, the second not so much. He'd have to wait for Tenten to clear out too, and he'd already been quiet for ages—Kakashi-sensei was probably expecting him to attack or pull something. The last thing he wanted was Kakashi catching onto the little plan that he was putting together.

Feeling almost as though he'd had a stroke of genius, Naruto brought his hands together in a hand seal. " **Kage Bunshin**!" he almost yelled before bringing his voice down to a whisper and cringing. He was trying to be sneaky after all.

Sure enough, about ten Shadow Clones appeared with accompanying clouds of smoke. However they were notably different from the majority of the ones that Naruto had summoned since learning the jutsu a few days ago, these were less loud and more focussed. Almost as though they had picked up on Naruto's current attitude, they nodded understandingly—without protest—when Naruto whispered his instructions.

"Right, I was you three to go and take care of Sakura-chan. Just do what you have to, to keep her away from Kakashi-sensei... and I want the rest of you to attack Kakashi with all you've got, just like what we've been doing this entire time."

"And what about you boss?" one of the clones asked quietly, having not quite caught on to the plan.

Naruto merely flashed through a series of hand seals as thin veil of grey smoke appeared before him. As the smoke began to fade, the clone that asked the question nodded in understanding as a pink-haired girl came into view. Despite being slightly taller than Naruto, she had a noticeably smaller stature and looked a little meeker. Instead of the orange jumpsuit that Naruto had been wearing previously, he was now wearing Sakura's red body-hugging dress with the accompanying tight dark green shorts.

Instead of having his forehead protector wrapped around his forehead, it was now sitting back on top of 'his' long pink hair, slightly accentuating his face. Glancing back at his clones, Naruto whispered roughly, "Okay now!"

Discretely following the clones that were headed towards Sakura—he needed to emerge from roughly the same spot after all—Naruto made sure to also keep an eye on Kakashi-sensei and Tenten. The older girl's onslaught of weapons seemed to be over for the most part but she was still present, attempting to attack Kakashi from mid-range. Like usual, Kakashi had his damn book in his hand, showing that the masked jonin wasn't trying in the slightest... it was pretty unnerving to know that they had barely gotten Kakashi to look up from that book for more than a second despite their best individual efforts.

The seven clones he sent Kakashi's way had taken it upon themselves to duplicate themselves even further—it was pretty nifty how he could have a clone make a clone of itself. About five or so were in plain view for Naruto and he suspected that Kakashi wouldn't have a hard time releasing their locations, while the others had scattered themselves slightly.

While it would be beyond awesome if they managed to succeed, Naruto wasn't expecting them to. They were merely a prolonged distraction so that his clones could subdue Sakura and so that he could get Tenten out of there; the fact that they were his clones also meant that he could time everything perfectly.

Almost simultaneously both groups of clones began to attack their targets... well in one group's case it wasn't exactly attacking so much as pulling back and temporarily gagging. The three he'd sent after Sakura managed to pull her away, one of them putting their hand of her mouth to avoid the loud gasp which would've occurred otherwise, and got her to calm down relatively quickly by hushing her. They were just out of earshot from his position now, so he could barely make out what they were saying—most likely bull crap to try and stall her from trying to charge back in.

Readying himself, Naruto slipped forwards through some of the last bushes that lead to the huge clearing they had started in. Kakashi—who was just in the midst of fending off Tenten—would probably be able to see him from where he was, so it was imperative to start off the act from where he was.

Naruto really didn't know much about impersonating people but he figured the best way to go about it was to behave like the extreme opposite of what he normally did. Stay quiet, force a frown on his face and stutter whenever he did speak—Kakashi wouldn't realise it was him in the middle of a henge that way. Letting his body shake with fake nervousness slightly, Naruto looked up to Kakashi as he prodded his fingers together in a manner similar to one of his other graduating classmates.

Looking up, he saw Tenten leaving the clearing—probably wiped out from her recent assault—while his clones were foolishly throwing themselves at Kakashi in what was probably faux desperation.

Gulping in an overly exaggerated manner as the last of his clones were dispersed, Naruto pulled a kunai out and held it in front of himself uncomfortably. Attempting make eye contact with Kakashi-sensei Naruto noted that his face was back down in his book again, however the grey-haired man had a slightly raised eyebrow as though he was wondering what the pink-haired 'girl' in front of him was plotting.

Naruto walked forwards slowly, before speeding up slightly and jogging towards Kakashi-sensei, his kunai grasped tightly in the hand in front of him the entire time. With the most high-pitched scream that he could muster, Naruto flung the kunai forwards—purposely missing Kakashi as he brought his fingers together in a hand seal.

Smoke almost immediately covered the area as Naruto made a mad lunge for the bells, his clones—which appeared to have not taken on Sakura's appearance—rapidly closing in on Kakashi from behind.

Kakashi appeared to have realised that something was amiss the second the smoke appeared, and while he wasn't able to do much to stop the lunging Naruto from coming towards him, he immediately tensed. Just as Naruto's fingers reached Kakashi's waist—where the bells were tied—Kakashi's eyes widened as he realised what was about to happen.

Managing to touch the bell slightly, Naruto's face broke out into a wild grin as he grabbed it. Or rather grabbed what he thought was it... until he realised that his hand had closed in on empty air, Kakashi having swayed his entire body to the right in order to dodge.

Naruto's face almost immediately fell as Kakashi dispelled each of his visible clones in quick succession, the man's book still in hand. Bringing his hands together in a hand seal once more, Naruto attempted to make more Shadow Clones only to hesitate at the last second.

Kakashi's one eye was on him, or more specifically his hands. They were joined in the clone seal—a hand seal mostly used for just clone techniques and the only hand seal of his Kage Bunshin jutsu—the jig was up. Kakashi knew that he was Naruto, continuing on would pretty much be useless... he'd need to go back to the drawing boards.

Sighing heavily, he let his  **Henge**  disperse as he jumped backwards without a word. Turning around, he left to try and find his other clones and then try and come up with something new.

…

Naruto was surprised to find his clones, Sakura and Tenten all standing near each other in the thick bush a couple of hundred metres in from the clearing. Tenten was talking with his clones about something while Sakura looked a little discouraged however both of their faces snapped up when he came into view.

Sakura's face immediately morphed into a glare, "What the hell was that Naruto?"

"What?" Naruto asked sheepishly, knowing full well what she was referring to.

"How dare you try and pretend to be me!" Sakura said outraged, "You can't just do that!"

"I'm... sorry?" Naruto said, a little confused as to how he was meant to respond. Thankfully divine intervention came in the form of Tenten.

"Calm down Sakura, Naruto didn't really do anything wrong and hey whatever he was trying didn't work anywhere." That seemed to do the trick as Sakura calmed down a little, nodding her head slightly in acceptance though it did nothing to ease the slight glare on her face. "Alrighty so there's a reason I gathered Sakura and your clones, Naruto, we need to figure out what to do."

"Whaddya mean?" Naruto asked, "We just need to try and get the bells don't we?"

"Not been working all that well, boss," One of Naruto's clones explained. "It's been at least three hours and only one of us has even gotten close to touching the bell."

"Good job on that Naruto," Tenten complemented. "That wasn't a bad idea, tricking Kakashi-sensei like that, you could tell from his face that he wasn't expecting it."

"Heh well I like being unpredictable," Naruto beamed slightly, before looking back at Sakura and Tenten. "So what's the plan?"

"Well," Sakura started, "Tenten and I realised that the only shot in hell any of us had at getting a bell was if we all worked together."

"W-we can't do that!" Naruto exclaimed, stuttering slightly, "Say we do work together, there are only two bells... it's not going to work."

"We can do maths Naruto," Tenten laughed slightly. "We can worry about that bit later, first we need to get the bells don't we?"

"Still, it's not fair if one of us has to miss out..." Naruto mumbled slightly.

"Well two over the fence is better than none, isn't it Naruto?" Tenten asked, continuing when she received a slight nod from the blond haired boy. "Think of this like a mission, we need to get two bells and the two that get the bells become chunin and the one that doesn't remains a genin. However if no-one does at all, we  _all_  fail the mission and we _all_  remain genin."

"I guess that makes sense then," Naruto sighed. "So what're we going to do? Nothing's worked so far, Kakashi sensei's way too strong!"

"Well what you did just there gave me a little idea..."

…

Kakashi sighed slightly to himself, so far there hadn't been anything particularly eventful except for when the blond brat managed to touch one of the bells. Nothing that other failed students hadn't accomplished. So it looked as though he would have another failed team on his hands, it was a shame.

Turning the page of his book, he yawned slightly as he carefully studied the voluptuous figure, his mind slowing down slightly. His stomach was beginning to rumble, so that meant that they had been out for a while especially since he'd not heeded his own 'advice' and had breakfast that morning. He almost felt sorry for the three kids who likely hadn't eaten anything since dinner last night... almost.

He hadn't even brought lunch as an extra incentive for them to do well this time, he barely expected them to do well. It was one of the rare teams that had a dead last with no rookie of the year to balance things out, after all. The other two members weren't anything great either from what he had seen, the bun-haired one knew her way around a couple of weapons but there were glaring holes in many of her techniques.

On someone less experienced throwing a bunch of weapons almost blindly at someone might have sent them into a panic and worked, but unfortunately for her he had no shortage of knowledge on how to evade long-ranged weapons.

He supposed it was possible that he was going a little hard on them, but he had never been the type to purposely go easy. The fact that he hadn't used a single ninjutsu was a testimony to the fact that he was trying though, but there was no way that he would sabotage his actual movements purposely.

He was intentionally moving slower, but if there was a gap to escape it wasn't as though he  _wouldn't_  take it. That would be stupid. Not only would it mean that he'd have less time to go through Icha Icha book in his hand that he was re-reading, it also meant that they would have a false sense of security about their techniques.

Purposely not showing students their flaws was asking for them to be killed. They were young, fresh-green academy students... letting things develop into habits could easily prove to be fatal.

Kakashi's eye was suddenly drawn away from his book for the briefest second as he noticed Naruto nearing him, before he indifferently looked back down. As predicted, Naruto immediately grunted in anger—he let the easiest things get to him too quickly. Someone skilled in the study of the mind would easily be able to tear him apart psychologically within a few minutes, he was so... vulnerable.

The brat had been a massive pain thus far though, Kakashi hadn't begun to attempt to use ninjutsu on any of them—he wanted to see what they were able to do—and that meant that his Shadow Clones were annoying. They were easy enough to dispel but there were  _so many_ , and the kid didn't look as though he was even beginning to let up... it was literally insane.

Had he not learned it the hard way, Kakashi would have sworn that they were just regular clones... the number that the brat had summoned today had to be at least in the hundreds. And that was nothing compared to the rumours circulating in the jonin lounge room about his apparent fight with Mizuki.

With a loud yell, Naruto summoned another ten or so Shadow Clones and Kakashi almost had to restrain himself from trying to ram a  **Chidori**  through all of them. Lethargically raising an arm to block a kick that one of the clones sent his way, Kakashi quickly stabbed it with a kunai before using a leg-sweep to trip over several of the clones that were making their way towards him.

It was amusing to say the least, for the punch they packed they sure couldn't take a hit. He supposed that was counterbalanced by the fact that Naruto had just created another twenty or so—he couldn't tell—clones though.

Sighing, he lashed out with a knee and caught one in the gut before knocking it back into the others however the rustling of the branches behind him caught his ear. Somersaulting into the air with ease, he looked behind only to find Tenten with a kunai raised.

His eyebrows raised themselves slightly—a habit he had long since gotten into—as he saw her toss the projectile at him with a swift motion. That wasn't a good thing... kunai were sharp, dropping back down to the ground he barely managed to avoid the next two or three that the girl managed to throw. Her aim was off but he supposed that was because she was rushed—he had only been in mid-air for a while after all.

Suddenly, he felt something clinging onto his arms tightly. Tilting his head back in mild surprise, he found that Naruto had capitalised on the opportunity Tenten had provided by grabbing onto his back. The extra pressure on various limbs and body parts indicated that apparently the rest of the clones had decided to join in on the fun too.

Sighing, Kakashi brought his hands together and flashed through a few seals before vanishing, a log left in his place. Reappearing behind Tenten, he couldn't help himself from lowly speaking.

"Those are some sharp kunai you have there." She turned around, an expression of horror upon her face as Naruto and his clones scrambled to reach him.

Bringing his fist forward, he snapped it forward—he was pulling his punches but it was likely enough to do the job—and sent Tenten sprawling towards the mini-army of Naruto clones.

He brought his book back up to reading level, having previously pocketed it, before continuing where he left off with the same level of interest he had displayed the last time Naruto attempted to approach him.

However the sound of a jutsu dispelling—probably a clone—made him look up in surprise. While there were multiple Naruto clones attempting to reach the bell, that wasn't what caught his eye, rather the pink-haired girl on the floor in the place of Tenten. Alarmed, Kakashi quickly realised that he hadn't punched Tenten... rather Sakura. He'd been had.

His eye immediately glanced around the place, trying to identify where Tenten was, but that was a lot easier said than done given that he only had a single eye and several blonds in orange jumpsuits that were duplicating as they charged at him en masse were obscuring it. Sensing something drifting through the air behind him, Kakashi quickly spun around as he brought his head down into a duck—only barely managing to avoid the shuriken that would have otherwise pierced his back.

His eye widened as he noticed Tenten sitting in a tree, many different scrolls drooped around the branches and two large shuriken in her hands. Smirking devilishly, the girl flung the two at him... the first one missing by a little however when he moved to evade the second one he suddenly found himself constricted by the several Naruto clones behind him, allowing it to just go whizzing by the hairs on his neck.

Attempting to bring his hands forwards into a substitution jutsu again, Kakashi found that his arms were being clung onto with an iron grip by several hands... he could barely move his fingers. The bells were safe, they were more towards the front of his body than his back, but that wasn't what was worrying him... Tenten had just finished unsealing several... no,  _multiple_ , weapons from her scrolls.

In less than a second Kakashi found what had to be—at least, if not more than—fifty weapons flying at him. There was almost no doubt in his mind that it wasn't a genjutsu, it was very much the real thing. It all made too much sense... the clones slowly replicating themselves so he wouldn't suspect anything... Sakura only using kunai to attack him, drawing his curiosity... and why they hadn't straight out attempted to subdue him in a position like the one he was in now.

His eye was almost wide with fear, he had no doubt that Tenten knew how to take care of her weapons—and weapon care included sharpening, lots of it. Fifty sharp, pointy objects flying at him while both his arms were held apart... there wasn't much he could do.

Except. " **Futon: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)**!" With one hand though, it wasn't really all that  _great_. Nevertheless the rather weak gust of wind was enough to halt every single weapon and send them off trajectory as they dropped to the ground, but not enough to knock Tenten out of the tree, he noted as the bun-haired girl hung onto the tree for dear life.

"Damn it!" Naruto yelled after helping Sakura up from the ground, punching his fist into the ground in frustration. "We were so close!"

"I g-guess this is why he's a jonin," Sakura said weakly. Really? One-handed hand seals? How were they supposed to prepare for that? Only the Second Hokage had been proficient enough to use them effectively in combat.

"Alright, that's enough," Kakashi sighed as he turned around to face both Naruto and Sakura, before looking back to Tenten. With a loud booming voice he declared, "This test is now over!"

"... Over?" Naruto muttered unbelievingly before glancing at the bells that were still tied around Kakashi's waist in hopelessness. They were still there, both of them, meaning that all of them had failed. They didn't even get to the point where they were discussing who'd be sent back to the academy, they were all going to be...

"It can't be..." Sakura looked just as desperate as Naruto, "we a-almost had him."

Kakashi allowed Tenten to reach him, before walking towards Naruto and Sakura, making no small show of his disappointment as the bun-haired girl followed him.

"So how do you think you guys went?" Kakashi asked, his voice blank as blank as an empty canvas.

"... Horrible... I can't believe we didn't manage to get the bells..." Naruto muttered, Tenten and Sakura only nodding shamefully; both girls did not dare to try and utter a word.

"The ninja world is a world where there is no room for failure, your Kage expects no less than success and will not settle for any less," Kakashi began. "Failure is unacceptable for your Kage, your village and most importantly—yourself. Failure can mean permanent impairment..." he raised a lone hand to his uncovered eye, "or it can mean death. It can mean the death of those close to you, those you'd never have wished any harm on and often those you'd have least suspected to die. Success is key... imperative, vital and in this world you must work by any means to gather it. Risk your lives even, I'm sure all of you have someone you'd give your life for after all, but achieve it."

A solemn look came across the three recent academy graduates as Kakashi continued. "But don't forget who you are when you do it, don't get lost on what you may think is the road to success because when you reach the end of whatever road you are on, you'll turn around and look back. And you'll see a lonely road. Work together with your friends, your comrades, your team mates and you'll see several smiling faces looking back at you... teamwork and camaraderie are just as important as success. Use them and let them be your guides."

Naruto opened his mouth, intent on vocalising his confusion before a raised gloved hand silenced him. Slowly shutting his mouth awkwardly, he looked back towards his sensei as the man kept on speaking.

"My first lesson to you all will be this: those in the ninja world who break the rules are scum, that's true... but those who abandon their friends... are worse than scum. Remember it." he advised, his voice lightening up as he spoke the last two words.

The three nodded in agreement, however it was Naruto's mind—in particular—that was racing.

' _Kakashi-sensei's right. I can't abandon my comrades, my teammates, in their time of need... they both deserve to become chunin more than I do. Tenten's smart, she was almost Rookie of the Year, and Sakura-chan doesn't deserve to go back again after all the effort she put in. I—on the other hand—only graduated by a fluke and besides, I've failed the exam three times now... one more's hardly going to make a difference...'_

"L-lesson?" Sakura broke the silence... "That means we passed!"

Both Naruto and Tenten's eyes widened in realisation immediately.

…

"So the... purpose... of that... test," Naruto said between slurps of ramen before inhaling the remainder of her bowl, "was to see whether or not we could work as a team together?"

"Yep," Kakashi nodded, slightly without looking up from the Icha Icha book he was engrossed in. "I was actually worried that you wouldn't figure that out for a second there."

"Wait... does that mean that we didn't need to spend all those hours trying to get the bells from you?" Naruto snapped up suddenly, his eyes demanding an answer from the masked jonin.

"Well I'd assume Kakashi-sensei wanted to test our abilities too," Tenten explained as Sakura chuckled slightly.

"So we're finally genin," Sakura sighed. "I almost can't believe it..."

"Yeah, you bet! You won't believe it when I become a chunin and then the best Hokage ever either," Naruto grinned a little.

"Mah, calm down Naruto, you're forgetting you have to become a jonin first," Kakashi said lazily as he turned a page.

"Oh yeah... that too, I'll be an awesome jonin as well."

"I'm sure you will Naruto," Kakashi said sarcastically, "can't wait until you make ramen a compulsory food for everybody either."

"I wouldn't do that," Naruto protested before smiling, "I'd save it all to myself."

Tenten laughed lightly, before glancing at Kakashi, a much more serious look on her face. "So Kakashi-sensei, I was wondering if you could tell us how we all did today?"

"You all did very good and should be very proud," Kakashi recited, almost uninterested as he squinted to make out some of the text on the page.

"But we didn't even get a single bell..." protested Sakura, "I know the main goal was teamwork and all but we were so horribly individually."

"You're genin, you're all horrible individually. The important thing is that you learned to work as a team," Kakashi yawned.

"Seriously sensei, can you try and assess how we all did?" Tenten asked eagerly, "If we're ever going to improve we need to know."

Kakashi glanced at Tenten before closing his book and sighing. "Well, if you insist... Tenten, you need to work more on broadening your offence at close range. You weren't a threat to me at long-rage at all there because I'm experienced, and you seemed almost scared to get in close. Aside from that, you're going to have to learn to not heavily depend on weapons—wind jutsu make them almost harmless, you don't want to be caught off guard when you come up against a wind user. Aside from that I was impressed with how accurate your attacks were and the time in which it took you to get each one off, even when I was about chunin-level I wasn't that good."

The bun-haired girl allowed blood to raise to her cheeks as she bowed her head shamefully, "I'm not too good with swords."

Kakashi nodded slightly, before looking at the only blond present. "Naruto?" he asked, continuing when the boy looked up at him. "Honestly you surprised me the most out of everyone here. Not because you were the best, but because with the way you carry yourself and the way you performed for the first hour or two, I had a very weak impression of you. Even though you managed to get the closest of anyone to a bell, that's not necessarily a good thing in the ninja world because it's closely associated with politics. You want to become a Hokage... act like it."

Naruto nodded slightly, surprised to notice that the man still had more to say. "Onto your actual performance, your basic skills were average at best but your ability to spam Shadow Clones worked pretty well in your favour. Because I wasn't using ninjutsu to dispel them... learn to make them more effective and not rely on them so heavily, like Tenten and her weapons. Aside from that try being a little more quiet when you're trying to  _sneak_  around, anytime you were in the vicinity I could hear it... and change those clothes. You may be good at staying out of sight but bright orange makes even the slightest hint of your body stand out like a wildfire in a jungle."

"But I like orange..." Naruto protested, "What does everyone have against it? You, Sakura-chan, Tenten and even Kurenai-sensei..."

"It's not a colour suited for a ninja. You might not like it, but wearing it on a mission is just as likely to endanger your teammates as it is you. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, don't allow that to be you... much less your choice of attire."

Looking as though he had just witnessed someone kicking a puppy, Naruto quietened down as he managed to force a nod; his mind filled with plenty of food for thought.

"And you, Sakura. You worked well when you were playing your part in that last attack you guys had me play, in fact I'd go so far as to say that your performance there was flawless, but individually there's a lot of improvement needed. Every punch you managed to land barely tickles, you were so slow that at some points I half expected my dead grandma to resurrect herself and attack you first and your fighting technique was entirely made from the academy textbook. Naruto had too much improvisation in his, certainly not a good thing as it depends heavily on circumstances, but I could predict your next move before it happened. It was literally that repetitive."

The girl numbly nodded, her face as sour as Naruto's as she picked at the vegetables in her bowl of ramen.

"Well then, that settles that." Kakashi sighed, before standing up. "I'll be on my way, same place tomorrow, same ti-"

"Actually I'd like to speak with you Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura interrupted, stuttering as he raised an eyebrow. "I-in private, after N-Naruto and Tenten leave..."

"Go for it," Tenten said before looking to Naruto. "We were just leaving anyway."

"What? No we weren't," Naruto protested as Tenten grabbed him by the sleeve and ushered him out.

"C'mon, I'll come with you to get your clothes so that you don't pick out another bright orange jumpsuit..."

…

"So what do you think Sakura needed to talk to Kakashi-sensei about?" Naruto asked, curiously as he followed Tenten.

"Not sure, don't really care," she sighed. "It's none of our business, and if it is we'll find out tomorrow."

Unsure of how exactly he was meant to reply to that, Naruto searched for a new topic. "So do you really need to come with me to get clothes?"

"Aside from making sure you actually don't pick out more orange," Tenten paused enough to glare at him slightly before adopting a more serious look, "I have this theory about what you told me yesterday."

"Y-yesterday?" Naruto asked, unsure of what exactly the bun-haired girl was on about.

"Yeah, you said that when you tried to buy stuff it's pretty expensive. Well I've got this theory that you're being cheated by the merchants, so I'm gonna take you to a store I know—the guy who runs it is really close friends with my caretakers, it's where I always go for whatever I need." Tenten explained as the blond boy sighed in relief. She hadn't managed to connect any dots relating the Kyuubi.

"What's it called?" Naruto questioned, wondering if he'd been to the store or not.

"Well it's a pretty big store, primarily for both ninja and civilian clothing but it's also got a small ninja tools section... not sure if you've heard of it but it's called 'Adachi's.'"

"Adachi's?" Naruto repeated questioning, "I went there once or twice but the stuff was pretty expensive... couldn't afford it."

"Probably the case with most of the stores you've visited for some reason, I'm just hoping that its owner, Murai Adachi, won't try and pull anything since you're now on my team." She answered, before pointing to a large single-story building across the road and a hundred or so metres away from their current position.

"W-well I don't see how having you there's really going to change any of that," Naruto tried to scramble for an excuse to not let Tenten walk into the store with him.

Tenten sighed, "I already told you Naruto, the owner's a close family friend. And if he does rip you off, I want to see it with my own eyes because I won't be buying from their store after that."

"You won't?" Naruto asked, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Well we're teammates now, if a place refuses to serve you properly they're not getting any of my business... even though it'll barely have a financial impact on them, it's the concept that counts right?"

Naruto could only nod dumbfounded as he followed Tenten across the road.

Moments later they walked into the store, and Naruto was surprised to see that what Tenten had described of the store was an understatement. He was almost sure that the place was about as big as his whole apartment block!

Unsure of where to start, he allowed Tenten to lead him towards the counter where he found a fairly tall girl manning the store. Oddly enough she had thick blue hair that barely fell past her neck, but his eyes were immediately drawn towards her slightly pointed nose. The girl was fairly slender too but he wouldn't have called her skinny.

"Tenten?" the girl asked, questioningly, "Look at how much you've grown!"

"Kaya-chan!" Tenten exclaimed with a smile, "It's great to see you too."

"Yep, so what can I do for you today? Dragging your boyfriend shopping, are we?" the girl teased.

"No," Tenten said flatly. "This is a friend, Naruto, he's on my genin team... our sensei told us to go find some decent ninja clothes for him." She gave a hard, unsympathetic glance at his orange jumpsuit.

"Ah, I've got you... and by the way congratulations on becoming a genin," the girl snickered slightly, "I remember back when you fumbled to hold a toy kunai straight."

"Heh he..." Tenten rubbed the back of her neck nervously before looking back to her friend, "So do you have any suggestions in mind?"

"Hmmm... I'd assume you guys want to get rid of the orange entirely or at least tone it do-"

"Yes," Tenten said unhesitatingly as Naruto gave her a slightly shocked look, "Get rid of it entirely."

"Any other preferences? Colour wise, material wise..." the girl trailed off.

"Not really, just don't make it too bright—sensei was worried that it'd end up getting him killed on a mission by giving away his position." Naruto just stood slack-jawed as he watched Tenten do all the talking.

"Hmm... well you don't look all that tall so you could probably fit into a twelve, but if you want your clothes to last through a minor growth spurt you're going to have to go up to a fourteen... but I'm not sure if you're wide enough to fit into one," the girl said in deep thought, a hand raised to her chin.

Naruto just smiled at her awkwardly, before the girl shrugged a little. "Well I've got a vague idea of what to get you, why don't you follow me kid?"

The blue-haired girl, Kaya, walked out from behind the counter and lead Naruto to clothes rack. "Somehow I don't think another jump-suit's going to work all that well, 'specially since it's summer and you'll get hot in the ones we have."

She brushed her fingers through a couple of the muscle-shirts on the rack, before pausing. "Wait, kid? Do you have anything on under that jumpsuit jacket?"

Naruto nodded slightly before opening up his jumpsuit and tossing it to the floor, revealing a tight black shirt.

"Well just wearing that wouldn't be a bad idea if it wasn't way too tight... plus you'll probably get cold at some point in that." She walked up to a table where several black shirts were placed, before picking one up and holding it up, allowing it to unfold itself.

"This is a standard black-shirt, many of Konoha's forces were it, but it doesn't have those red spirals on the sleeves. Don't think they'd go that entirely well with your hair and all that. Now this is made of a pretty decent, but inexpensive material, it should keep your body temperature the same so long as you don't try going for a swim with it. The problem is that the material itself isn't too durable for you ninja, so if you're one of those ones that takes a lot of hits you're going to be replacing them a lot. That or you're going to need to learn how to sow the tears backs together..."

"I guess with your Shadow Clones it shouldn't be too much of a problem," Tenten answered for him.

"Aww but I don't want to have to learn how to sow... couldn't I just get a normal shirt and wear a vest like Kakashi-sensei or something?" He had long since realised that his jumpsuits were out of the question... and orange too unfortunately.

"A vest?" Kaya laughed as she brushed a strand of blue hair out of her face, "On you? Any of the ones we have would probably look stupid on you, they're too big."

"Damn it," Naruto sighed. "I guess the shirt's not all that bad..."

"Yep, we'll take seven," Tenten said all-too cheerfully as Kaya held on to the one she picked up.

"Alright, now for your pants... black's the only thing I can see working with hair colour and shirt, so we're going to go for that." She walked over to another table where several types of pants were laid down from civilian shorts to expensive ninja pants.

"Okay, so you're going to need a spot to keep all your ninja tools. I'd assume that your jumpsuit had tonnes of hidden pockets and all that, but unfortunately the shirt doesn't have any... and most of our pants don't either." Kaya picked up a pair of black shorts that cut off right before knee-length. "These only have two pockets, but they'd easily work the best."

"So where am I going to keep all my weapons then?" Naruto asked, "I've got lots of kunai and shuriken..."

"Pretty rubbish ones from what you've told me," Tenten interrupted as Kaya handed Naruto the shorts before holding up a hand to silence Tenten.

"I was just getting to that... now I like the hip pouches that most ninja wear these days, but we've got something that's a step up from that." She walked towards the window, before taking a weapon pouch of some sort and handing it to Tenten. "You might like this too, it's state of the arch technology. You can fit up to two hundred kunai, shuriken and explosive tags... each. Plus a couple other small custom objects."

Naruto wasn't sure how he was to react, but if Tenten's gobsmacked face was any indication, very surprised.

"That's amazing Kaya-chan... how is that possible?" the bun-haired girl asked, awestruck as she returned the pouch.

"It's got inbuilt sealing scrolls is all I know, not really all that sure about the details behind the technology and all but what you do is," she unzipped the middle of the pouch, revealing that the two sides had been cut in two; each quarter of the bag dyed a different colour, "press against the quarter that you want to access and pump a little bit of chakra into it, pull out your hand and however many shuriken—or whatever tool you chose—fit into the bag will fill it up. And to deposit, you cut off the flow of chakra before restarting it quickly and then just dropping whatever you need to store in there."

"Wait so how do we tell which section is which tool?" Naruto asked, slightly confused.

"With use, you'll be able to tell without even having to look but for now, it's colour coded. Blue stands for kunai, green for shuriken, red for explosive tags and yellow for whatever custom object you want to put into it. Just be weary with those though, it'll ruin the bag if you try and put something bigger than the bag itself in it." Kaya answered, all too happily.

"Sounds good... Naruto?" Tenten turned her head towards him questioningly.

"Yeah, it sound awesome. We'll take it!" Naruto exclaimed as he took the pouch into his hands giddily, "So that's all I need right?"

"I'm going to get you some better kunai and shuriken another day, but for now thats it. Go and try on the clothes," said Tenten as she gestured for Kaya to hand Naruto the shirt she had picked up as well.

"Also it's probably not a bad idea to keep the little kunai holster you're wearing for quick use."

…

Kakashi stared curiously at the pink-girl, "So what was it that you wanted to talk about?"

She prodded her fingers together slightly, before speaking with a stutter, "I-I'm sorry that I was so w-weak today."

"Huh? Oh don't worry about it, that's nothing to be apologising about," Kakashi sighed as his face—or whatever portion of it was visible—fell into a slight smile.

"... It's not j-just that. I don't like being so weak... Tenten... Naruto, they're both so much stronger than me already! And I always got better marks than both of them in the academy, I studied more and I got better test results... so w-why?" Sakura questioned, "I don't understand it... all I'm doing is holding the team back."

"It's nothing to worry about, all genin start off weak. You'll get better as time passes," Kakashi sighed as he began to look back down to his book.

"I-I mean I was thinking, maybe I should give u-up being a ninja. Out of the three of us, it was easily I who deserved to go back to the academy... I mean Tenten's a good ninja and Naruto touched a bell! I barely even got close to seeing them half the time."

"I'm not going to force you either way, it's your choice whether or not you decide to walk the road of a ninja," Kakashi sighed, uninterested. It was harsh but he didn't feel like trying to work out a little girl's emotional problems.

"I w-want to get stronger Kakashi-sensei... I don't like being so weak, it's not fair to you... the team... Tenten or Naruto." she hesitated as she clutched her chest, beginning to sniff a little.

"You'll get stronger as you grow Sakura, now stop wasting my time... grow up, you're living in a child's world." Kakashi sighed as he turned a page. Once again it wasn't the nicest thing in the world to say, but he wasn't good at emotional support. With luck it would get her to shut up.

The girl whimpered a little, "I'm not good at fighting... but I want to get better!" She sniffed again but Kakashi didn't bother looking up, until he heard her shiver a little. Looking up, he followed her body up to her face as—was that a tear welling up? She wasn't going to start... oh god, she was about to cry.

"Well there's someone I know who might be able to help you out."

…


End file.
